Pariahs and Passions
by kali06
Summary: This story questions what is more important: to have your family, friends, or society idolize you or to be with the one you love? Features Eve, Julian, T.C., Chad, Whitney, Fox, Theresa, Ethan, and Gwen.
1. Chapter 1 of Part 1: Denial and Destiny

"A love like the love that we have can never die. I will love him my whole life, Whitney. Don't tell me that we will never be together. If you do, I just know that my heart will break."  
  
"He's married, Theresa. He has a child already, and a second one on the way. I only want you to be happy, and I don't want you to try to interfere with the marriage and get yourself hurt all over again."  
  
"Whitney, you know I would never wish any harm on Ethan or Gwen. I only want him to be happy, but I'm telling you Whitney. It was fate that brought us together before, and it will be fate that brings us together again. We are fated to be together."  
  
Whitney sighed and shook her head. Impulsively, she hugged Theresa, wanting only for her best friend to be happy, wishing that she could find someone else to love with and live with. She thought of her own fiancee, Chad, and the happy life she dreamed that she would live with him. Fate. There's no such thing as fate. There is only life, as hard as it is, and love, something that you commit yourself to and make happen. Love is like a tennis victory, hard earned by commitment, devotion, intensity and years of readying your mind to the final victory.  
  
She gazed at Theresa again.  
  
"You have to try to find another man. Choose another man, who is worthy of you and loves you, then just devote yourself to him and let him devote himself to you."  
  
Theresa began to sob.   
  
"I don't want another man. I will never have with any other man the bond that I have with Ethan. I love him, and we are fated to love each other..."  
  
Theresa's voice trailed off as she watched her best friend, who was watching her, next to the mahagony chair that had toppled over when she jumped. Whitney was standing and shaking her head violently, her hair spilling out of her bun and wildly hitting her face and eyes.   
  
"Why do you always say "fate"? What is it with fate? I can't believe you sometimes, Theresa. There is no such thing! You are not fated to be with Ethan, to wreck his marriage, cause his two children to grow up in a broken home. Stop it Theresa, you scare me."  
  
Whitney took a deep breath, shook her head again, and then she was still. She slowly pulled her long curly black hair back into a ponytail, righted the chair, and sat down again, almost crying.  
  
"I just don't like to see you this way, Theresa. I remember when we used to spy on Ethan, and the fishtail guts dumped right on his head, covering him, and we had to run because he thought you were a stalker and how young we used to be, how much we loved life. Where are you, Theresa? Where is the Theresa that I used to know?"   
  
Theresa began to cry. Her heart had been stomped on, crushed like grapes being trampled to wine. It had been wrung dry, so that she sometimes felt that she was unable to feel at all, as if she was frozen in ice.  
  
"Whitney, I'm here. I've just grown up. I'm not a child anymore."  
  
"Then grow out of this, please."  
  
"I love him, and I will love him until the day I die."  
  
"How do you know it is "fate"?" Whitney spit out. The word sent a cold clampy feeling through Whitney's spine, traveling up her body, making her feel as if she had a brain freeze. The word, as sweet to Theresa as choolate cookie dough ice cream, gave Whitney the chills caused by an ice cream headache, an almost sharp severe pain. She had started to hate it so much.   
  
"I can feel it. I know that he is the only man that I can ever love. Just like I knew that you and Chad were fate. You two have a special bond between you, a closeness that you don't and can't ever have with anyone else."  
  
Whitney smiled wryly.  
  
"And Fox and his mystery woman are fate. If Fox can continue loving that woman after all these years, I can continue to love Ethan."  
  
Whitney threw her hands up in the air.   
  
"Ok, I have two delusional friends. I know this. Whatever."   
  
Theresa laughed, hugging her arms around herself. Her somber expression brightened and she smiled, a million miles away. Whitney opened her mouth, about to say something harsh, then she closed it, bit her lip and looked away, her eyes glistening with tears. 


	2. Chapter 2 of Part 1: Denial and Destiny

Hidden behind the shed, curled up into a fetal like ball, Simone watched as the only father that she had ever known grabbed her mother's arm.  
  
"Why did you do it? Why did you let my baby go? Why did you destroy her tennis career?"  
  
Eve tried to meet T.C.'s eyes and couldn't. She lowered her head, a tear dropped to the lapel of her suede coat. T.C. grabbed her face and lifted it.  
  
"Why, Eve?"   
  
He dropped her face quickly. "Why, damn it! Why?"  
  
The cold wind bit into Simone's face and she shivered, curling into herself even more. She gazed into the house for a second, seeing Liz pacing the rooms, then she looked back at T.C., seeing his face contort violently again. She wrapped her arms more tightly around herself. The air was an icebox that froze and suffocated her. She closed her eyes when she heard her mother sob. She tried to keep her chest from pounding, tried to breathe, tried to keep down the deep sobs that were fighting to escape from her chest. She shut her eyes again.  
  
She felt a pulsating warmness overtake her. She smelt a deep hot Red Spice aftershave and a two-days old beard prickle against her chin as she was pulled into a warm bear hug. "I love you, Simone. I have always loved you, and you are first in my heart," her eyes burst open, and she kissed Chad Harris in thankfulness.   
  
"Whitney was a fling that made me see the truth," he said, "But she has decided to come back, because it is you that I want to make into my number one star. It's you that I want to take to L.A. so that we can live in paradise on earth." He described the movie stars that they would meet, the high rise apartment that they would live in, the private picnics on the beach for the two of them, and the love that they would have, a love that would never dim, that would last forever.   
  
T.C. looked at Chad with a mix of surprise and anger, then seeing Whitney walk back, tennis racket in hand, his expression changed to delight. Eve came to embrace Chad, talking excitedly about her joy at seeing everyone back, giving T.C. a quick kiss.  
  
"I hate what you are doing to our family, Eve!"   
  
Simone awoke to reality from her reverie. She tried to imagine Chad's arms around her once again, but T.C.'s voice was too loud, too strident for her to go back into her dream. She inched backwards, hoping to escape without being heard, but Eve glanced in her direction, and she froze into a standstill. The wind gnawed at her again.  
  
She watched Eve, standing still in her Ralph Lauren suede coat, completely unmoving, not able to raise her glance to look at T.C.'s sad brown face. T.C. grabbed her arms and shook her lightly.  
  
"Answer me!"  
  
Simone had never seen her mother so silent before. Eve shook like a limp rag doll, and her eyes seemed to search the backyard for someone to hold her, to save her, a familiar face that would only look at her with love. Simone closed her eyes again, trying to shut out the image of her mother so weak and so quiet. Eve was the rock of the family. The brilliant, caring doctor who could save the dying baby, the little boy with the fractured neck, the teenager who had locked herself out of the world so that she would not be hurt again.  
  
Doctor, heal yourself, Simone wanted to say. Heal our family. People are never what they seem, she had realized. Her mother could not be her rock. She had thought that Whitney loved her, not that Whitney was a girl who would take delight in destroying the family and seducing Chad away. At least T.C. would love her forever and Chad.... She shut her eyes tightly, scratching her eyelashes against her cheeks, and for a second she felt those little dark whiskers brushing against her cheek. 


End file.
